[Illustration by ALEX FINE] NEW YORK TIMES: Representative Anthony D. Weiner planned to check himself into a treatment center on Saturday after House Democratic leaders, including Nancy Pelosi, called on him to resign and suggested he needed psychiatric counseling. A spokeswoman for Mr. Weiner said he would request a leave of absence from the House and seek treatment, but provided no further details. “Congressman Weiner departed this morning to seek professional treatment to focus on becoming a better husband and healthier person,” said the spokeswoman, Risa Heller. “In light of that, he will request a short leave of absence from […]
WORTH REPEATING: War Is Over, The Drugs Won
NEW YORK TIMES: Friday marks the 40th anniversary of one of the biggest, most expensive, most destructive social policy experiments in American history: The war on drugs […] has waxed and waned, sputtered and sprinted, until it became an unmitigated disaster, an abomination of justice and a self-perpetuating, trillion-dollar economy of wasted human capital, ruined lives and decimated communities. (Since 1971, more than 40 million arrests have been conducted for drug-related offenses.) And no group has been more targeted and suffered more damage than the black community. As the A.C.L.U. pointed out last week, “The racial disparities are staggering: despite […]
EARLY WORD: Art For The Cash Poor
BY MEREDITH KLEIBER In this economy, money is pretty hard to come by. I mean, I’ll be completely honest with you—when cash goes into my bank account, the first thought that enters my head is I need to pay the bills, closely followed by, Man, I would really love a beer right now. After that, maybe some food or a concert. Let’s face it—the last thing most people think about buying nowadays is art, probably because they automatically assume they can’t afford it, especially if it’s an original piece. Well, there’s good news for the financially challenged: InLiquid’s Art For […]
CINEMA: Let There Be Light
THE TREE OF LIFE (2011, directed by Terrence Malick, 138 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC The Tree of Life, the fifth film from maverick filmmaker Terrence Malick in 38 years, is an improbable master stroke, a film that amplifies and clarifies the singular vision of his previous work while heading places his admirers could have never foreseen. It is impossibly ambitious. Using surrealism and CGI for the first time, Malick is looking to expound on the biggest questions of life. Over the course of two hours and 15 minutes, this impassioned, ethereal epic succeeds so well that it […]
HOT DOC: Jack White Divorce Party Invite
To whom it may concern: karen elson and jack white announce today that they are getting divorced. “we remain dear and trusted friends and co-parents to our wonderful children Scarlett and Henry Lee. We feel so fortunate for the time we have shared and the time we will continue to spend both separately and together watching our children grow. In honor of that time shared, we are throwing a divorce party. an evening together in Nashville to re-affirm our friendship and celebrate the past and future with close friends and family.” with love Karen Elson and […]
SH*T MY UNCLE SAYS: The Fault, Dear Brutus, Is Not With Our Weiners, But With Ourselves
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] BY WILLIAM C. HENRY Kudos to the American media and public at large! With the Anthony Weiner revelations, and the public’s insatiable appetite for the details thereof, the bar has now been set so low for profiting from salaciousness that paparazzi nationwide will no doubt soon be selling exposés of religious school valedictorians voraciously devouring issues of Playboy (for the interviews, of course). Christ, you have got to be kidding me! It’s now front page news as well as fodder for every bottom feeding Breitbart in the country that a congressman tweeted a picture of his […]
Obama Justice Department Backs Off Espionage Act Prosecution Against NSA Whistleblower After Jane Mayer’s Embarrassing Article In The New Yorker
BALTIMORE SUN: A former National Security Agency manager accepted a plea deal Thursday that cleared him of espionage charges stemming from the alleged leak of classified information to a Baltimore Sun reporter. Thomas Drake had been charged with 10 felonies but will plead guilty to a misdemeanor: exceeding the authorized use of a computer. If convicted of the felonies, he could have faced 35 years in prison. Under the plea bargain, he is not expected to serve any time. Drake, a former Air Force officer, had been charged under the Espionage Act even though he allegedly leaked information to a […]
SIDEWALKING: Portlandia VI
Stephen Malkmus, Interstate Bowl, 4:49 PM Wednesday by JONATHAN VALANIA
TONITE: Do The Hustle!
BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Tonight Andrew’s Video Vault unearths to very different New York stories for tonight’s double feature at The Rotunda. The 1975 made for TV feature Hustling gives us a view of the city in its mid-1970s seedy glory courtesy of Joseph Sargent, the director of the classic New York thriller The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3 (which can be seen during the film on a theater marquee). The screenplay, written by Fay Kanin and adapted from a book by Gail Sheehy, is surprisingly uninterested in the titillation factor of the profession but instead focuses on the in […]
EARLY WORD: Turn Around Bright Eyes
Friday June 10th with M. Ward. Tickets go on sale Friday at noon. PREVIOUSLY: The biggest cliche about Bright Eyes — aka 24-year-old 31-year-old indie-pop pinup boy Conor Oberst — is that he’s emerged as the latest “new Dylan,” a Mr. Tambourine Man for the O.C. Nation. Like all cliches, this one’s been worn meaningless by overuse. And yet, like any good cliche it’s essentially true. Heck, Oberst already got props from the last “new Dylan” who amounted to anything: Bruce Springsteen. Like Dylan in his prime, Oberst writes long, elliptical narratives–weaving word-clotted threads of angst and regret, anger and […]
SIDEWALKING: Portlandia IV
Work In Progress by Jessica Jackson Hutchins, Portland 3:24 PM Wednesday by JONATHAN VALANIA
M. WARD: Let’s Dance
M. Ward plays the Mann Friday with Bright Eyes and The Dawes. MORE M. Ward is the nom de soft rock of one Matt Ward, a shadowy horse whisperer from Portland, Ore., who has released seven albums of Jiminy Cricket porch folk and enigmatic lo-fi attic blues, each invested with a moonlit vibe that suggests there’s a kind of hush all over the world tonight. Ward is deeply self-schooled in all things past, and smart enough to know those who ignore history are doomed to remix it. A sad-eyed troubadour in the hang-dawg tradition of Nick Drake and Tim Buckley, […]